Who is Farhan Lalji?

I just finished reading Seth Godin’s the Dip. It was a quick, enjoyable read that’s helped me focus a bit.

The book talks about how anything worth having needs dedication and is usually pretty hard and how quitting a dead end masquerading as an opportunity (or as Seth calls them a “Cul-de-Sac”) is a good thing.

It’s hardly rocket science, I know. In fact the Missus told me “That seems pretty obvious” when I brought it up with her last night. But it’s funny how you can invest a lot of your time and effort into something that offers very little value and not think that you should drop it and focus on something really valuable – sunk costs apply to everything in my opinion. Or on the other hand how you can think something is too hard and forget why you’ve started down the path in the first place. Sometimes you need a kick up the backside to remind you that this is a dip and you need to power through it.

So thanks Seth, it was a good and short read and just what I needed this week.

I finished reading the Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt this week. A lot of it was pretty common sense and some things were surprising, like religious people being happier.

One of the things that caught me off guard was work and achievement of work as a source of happiness. In hind sight this looks obvious, but for some reason I hadn’t thought of it. The book goes over the notion that people can look at work as a job, a career or a calling. Me and the wife had an interesting discussion around this subject. I’ve, personally, gone from work being seen as a job (coding websites – aside: this wasn’t my calling, but I can definitely see how some developers would see this as a calling) to a career (managing coders of websites) and now I’m trying to find my calling in the internet industry. She’s always looked at teaching as a calling.

Of course people who find work as a calling are happier then people who look at their work as a job. But beyond that actually getting down and working and having accomplished stuff – whatever that stuff might be or however task oriented it is – can also be a source of happiness.

So, do you see what you do as a job, career or a calling? And are you happier when you get stuff done, regardless of how miniscule or detailed the tasks might be?

My definition of a portfolio is having a range of investments where risk is diversified. If you’re investing, you’re likely to be taking this type of approach. Venture Capital and other industries are likely to take this approach. When recently considering life decisions I decided that maybe taking a portfolio approach to life isn’t a bad thing.

In short, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. When this comes to career planning or goals it leads to a non-linear career path.

Non-linear career paths are awesome. It means you go from venture to venture, from idea to idea, industry to industry. But the goals should be set. For me, early on it was to earn a certain salary or to pay off debts, but as I’ve get older my goals have changed, but the approach to reaching them shouldn’t. You have a number of interests and you keep yourself open to whichever opportunities arise to follow whichever interests.

Whether it’s a Taoist approach, a Zen approach or a portfolio approach, whatever, it’s all about openness with a focus on what’s in the horizon.

(Thanks Vinay for the title inspiration)

I was listening to the Stanford podcast of Stephanie Keller Bottom (of Nokia’s Innovent team) today and found myself sharing an experience with her. It wasn’t that we both have degree’s that aren’t really technology related even though we work in technology – although that is true. And it wasn’t the fact that we think big companies can be supportive of innovation – although that’s true as well. It was when she mentioned that her father didn’t understand what she did.

My mom grew up in east Africa and trained to become a teacher. Since coming to Canada in the 70s she’s worked in a bank for most of her life. To her working in a bank or in the government seemed like really good jobs. Being a doctor or a lawyer seemed like really really good careers. She probably wasn’t the only one, I’m sure there are countless other immigrants who came to Canada around the same time and have the same or a similar mentality.

My wife has tried to explain to my mom what a great career I have, how the education I’ve gone through over the last few years is pretty impressive, yada yada yada, but I don’t think she absolutely gets it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom, a lot. She’s sacrificed a lot to raise me and has done a phenomenal job given what she went through - being in a new country, losing her husband, crappy second marriage - my mom is awesome.

But, it’s interesting that no matter what happens in the next couple of years, no matter how senior I get or what I do, if my mom doesn’t get it I think part of me will feel unfulfilled. I wonder if Stephanie Keller-Bottom feels the same way?

One of the interesting things about working for a large multinational organization is that everyone has an opinion about the company. This definitely takes some getting used to.

I knew it was going to be interesting the day after I let people know I was joining Yahoo, this happened to be the same day the MSFT rumors came out. Over the weekend a friend of a friend went off on one about how I should have joined Google rather then Yahoo. And now with the Jerry Wang / Sue Decker / Terry Semel announcement I’m being IM’d, emailed and accosted by friends on facebook for my opinion.

It’s hard not to get annoyed and ticked off at the misinformation and speculation. It’s something I’ve never dealt with - got any tips? Here’s my strategy for now, assess the person/people I’m speaking to, that is their background, there perspective and their information source. And then assess the medium being used (i.e. a face to face conversation has to be dealt with differently then an IM or a facebook message). Finally tell them to shut the hell up. Okay I might need to rethink that last step.

Anyway, I guess it’s something I’m going to have to get used to. Especially as I want to stay at Yahoo for some time – which, for the record, I definitely do.